Wi-fi suddenly very slow?

Recently my home network download speed went from being fast to annoyingly slow. I have a cable connection, and use a wireless device to connect all of my computers, phones, tablet, game systems and printers. Everything goes through the wireless access point.

Up until a few weeks ago, everything was ok, so I assumed it was the cable company’s fault, of course.  I soon learned that was not the case. I could directly connect to my cable modem and get really fast download speeds. That meant it had to be my Cisco Linksys Wireless Router.  I suppose it’s old, in Internet time.  The router was working fine though.

I realized that there was a new wi-fi network in the neighborhood, and saw that three of us were using channel 6 for our networks. I suspected that could be the problem, and it was a correct assumption.  Once I changed the channel ID, I was back to 20 mbps, up from .05.  What a relief!

 

 

By the way, from the screen shot above, you can see why you should secure your network. Any neighbor or passerby could access your shared computers and printers once they’re on your network!  An open network is a bad idea.

Read more here:
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/14250